The Daughter of Time

⚖The case for it

A bedridden Scotland Yard inspector investigates Richard III's alleged murder of the Princes in the Tower, purely through documents and logic. The British Crime Writers' Association named it the greatest mystery novel of all time. Tey questions whether history itself is a form of crime fiction, whether received truth is constructed guilt. A masterwork of intellectual audacity.

— the canon

✕The case against

Grant never leaves his bed, and neither does the novel. Whole chapters consist of a man being handed books and announcing conclusions. Tey accuses historians of stacking the deck, then stacks her own; her case for Richard III is as selective as the Tudor propaganda it indicts. Detection here is mostly other people's errands.

— the honest librarian